Pure Hearts

James 3:13-4:10

by the Rev. Dr. E. Scott Jones

First Central Congregational UCC

23 September 2012

 

 

    Imagine for a moment that you are in the check-out line at the grocery store. What do you see around you?

    Well, there will probably be candy bars, gum, and mints. Maybe even a cooler with sodas. These of course will be directly opposite the magazines, many of which will have cover articles on weight loss or pictures of very skinny, very beautiful models and celebrities.

    So, grab that information on the latest diet fad, but also be sure to grab a Snickers bar and a Diet Coke as well.

    

    Every day we are bombarded by messages about our cravings and desires -- either how to control them or how to abandon ourselves to them. We can't seem to make up our minds!

    There is, of course, the weight loss industry which focuses on how to develop the habits of controlling our desires, eating right, and exercising regularly.

    There are also all sorts of other advice guides: on financial planning, controlling stress, decorating your kitchen, organizing your closet, having more and better sex, etc., etc.     

 

    We humans are conflicted about our cravings and desires and always have been. Even ancient writers discussed what to eat and drink and how much was too much. Even when we intellectually know what is the right thing to do, we struggle to have the strength of will to do the right thing.

    James jumps directly into this discussion by revealing that our disordered cravings lead to disputes and violence. His language is pretty strong, and might put some of you off, but if you sit with it a while, I think you'll realize the truth in what he says. Very often humanity's disordered desires lead to unhealthy conflict, abuse, exploitation, even murder. In a sense, this is what he's been talking about all along in this letter. We've discussed how showing partiality to some people over other people leads to the destruction of God's intended community. We've looked at our speech and how when we curse someone we damage God's creation. Our selfish ambitions and vain conceits can lead to treating others not as sacred beings deserving of our gentleness and mercy, but as objects to be used for our own pleasure and happiness.

    Where there is envy, there will be wickedness of every kind.

 

    And so one response throughout human history has been to control our desires by minimizing them, even treating desire itself as sinful. This leads to the image many of us have of the Puritans – not smiling, not laughing, not enjoying life.

    Even this passage ends with the shocking words, "Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into dejection." The commentaries which I read suggested that what James means here is that the selfish and envious person who is focused on their own pleasure needs to awaken to the reality of human suffering and the plight of others.

    There have been religious people who have lived treating desire itself as sinful, but it might surprise you that our image of the Puritans is often mistaken. In fact they were a people filled with passion and desire. For instance, Puritan love letters are steamy and erotic. And their theological writings emphasize beauty, enjoyment, and delight. Richard Baxter, an early Puritan writer, wrote, "We shall never be capable of clearly knowing till we are capable of fully enjoying." That's an astonishing statement. Our intellectual development, even our spiritual growth, are predicated first and foremost on our ability to enjoy!

    One of the most important documents in the development of the Reformed tradition in Great Britain was the Shorter Catechism of 1647. It begins with the question, "What is the chief end of man?" (We would, of course, broaden and update that question to "What is the chief end of humanity?") The answer given is "Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever." We could update the language of the answer as well. Let's focus our attention on those astonishing words "glorify" and "enjoy." "Glory" is connected to beauty and radiance. "Enjoy" is connected to delight and desire and pleasure.

    At the root of our theological tradition lies this teaching – that we are living into our God-given purpose when we radiate with enjoyment at the life that God has given to us. Our great 18^th century leader Jonathan Edwards even went so far as to suggest that our delight adds something to the divine being. According to one interpreter of Edwards, he believed that "God's essence is a 'disposition' to multiply the enjoyment of beauty." Understand that. The very essence, the very being of God, who God is at God's very core, is a "disposition to multiply the enjoyment of beauty." I bet you haven't thought of God that way before!

 

    So, James is correct that our cravings can lead to wickedness and violence. But at the same time our tradition teaches us that our delight and enjoyment are our experience of God. Is there a contradiction here?

    No, because even James in his letter speaks of these cravings that lead to wickedness as being disordered, as flowing from something separate from God. What we need is to follow the pure wisdom from above. We need to school our desires to participate in God's plan for creation. We are called not to treat desire itself as sinful, but to enjoy and delight in the things of God, those things that are good, beautiful, and true.

    Contemporary theologian Catherine Keller writes that God is our beloved who promiscuously invites us to "come away." God sparks our desires, and when we are ignited, we will follow our beloved passionately. God lures us into life-affirming paths that lead to a "shared flourishing." This is a great adventure, which is both enjoyable and demanding, calling us "to become who we did not know we could be."

    This is not how we have traditionally been raised to think of God. We have thought of God as remote, as an old man in the clouds. Or as a task master who lays down the law and commands obedience. Or as a judge who ferrets out our every fault. Or maybe as a remote watchmaker who sets everything going and then leaves us alone.

    But, throughout our tradition there have been wise teachers calling us back to an image of God as the one who stirs our desires and calls us to adventure. Contemporary Reformed theologian Belden Lane wrote a recent book called Ravished by Beauty with the intent of calling our tradition back to this image of God. He writes,

 

My spiritual journey has been an effort to recover God's wild and winsome splendor, making demands of my life, rollicking in the fresh falling rain, fiercely affirming the whole of creation as unaccountably good, and stirring desire at every turn. . . . What we need is an awareness of God's rejuvenating presence filling the world with an amazement wild enough to capture the human heart.

 

    If this is the God we serve, this wild, flirtatious one who seeks to multiply enjoyment, then the old answer of the Shorter Catechism sounds all the more exciting. This is a God that we can enjoy forever. And we enjoy God by enjoying the things of God – all that God has created for us and the relationships that God offers to us. Just imagine the radical transformation of human society if we quit using one another and the creation for our own selfish pleasure and instead delighted in one another. We would be overcome with pleasure and happiness.

    This is deep wisdom that James offers us. Life-affirming wisdom. Good news wisdom.

    We serve a wild God who invites us to "Come away" and join the adventure that captures the human heart. Glory to God! Let us enjoy God forever.

Chad Griffin wrote a good piece for HuffPost on the anniversary of DADT repeal and the fact that no crisis ensued.  What did happen is that we became a more just society.  An excerpt:

Far from the catastrophe predicted by the opponents of equality, the only shock of DADT repeal seems to be that there was no shock at all. Of course, the American people are beginning to notice a trend here. Time and time again, on issues ranging from marriage equality to federal hate-crimes laws to employment nondiscrimination protections, the panicky opponents of equality have predicted disaster -- and are suddenly silent when that disaster fails to materialize.

Today, a broad and growing majority of Americans support LGBT equality. As the general public has come to better understand the lives LGBT people, they can see clearly what our so-called "agenda" is really about. The agenda of LGBT families, after all, is to raise their kids in safe schools, to contribute to a fair tax system, and to enjoy the same protections in health care that opposite-sex couples enjoy. The agenda of LGBT employees is to work hard in an environment where they won't be fired simply for living as they are. And the agenda of LGBT members of the armed forces is to serve openly and tirelessly the country that they love.

 

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who has herself been the target of Islamist rage, writes about this latest round of violence and sets it in context of a multi-decade clash between democratic ideals and religious fundamentalism.  She writes optimistically of the future, after struggle that will last a few more decades.  An excerpt:

We must be patient. America needs to empower those individuals and groups who are already disenchanted with political Islam by helping find and develop an alternative. At the heart of that alternative are the ideals of the rule of law and freedom of thought, worship, and expression. For these values there can and should be no apologies, no groveling, no hesitation.

Poison Tongue

James 3:1-18

by the Rev. Dr. E. Scott Jones

First Central Congregational UCC

16 September 2012

 

 

    We've all done it. We are hanging out with some friends, and the subject of the conversation becomes someone who isn't there. We say something about that person, which seems okay in the moment. Maybe what we say is funny. Maybe we are supporting an observation that someone else is making. Maybe we don't really know why we said it?

    Later we may feel bad that we said what we did. We hope that what we said won't get back to the person, because we realize we've been both imprudent and hurtful. And then we find out that it did get back to the person. First, we're angry at the person who told the friend what we said about them. We're angry at ourselves for being both stupid and not as good a person as we like to think we are. We, then, may have to spend days or weeks trying to repair the damage done. Sometimes it can't be repaired.

    If we had only listened to what our parents taught us and thought before we spoke.

    Like I said, we've all done that. And probably worse. What we say can and does get us into trouble. All the time.

    Even the most reserved, cautious, and considerate among us will make a mistake now and then. James is quite clear; no one can control the tongue. It will sneak up and bite every single one of us sooner or later.

    That doesn't mean we should resign ourselves to it and not try to be more cautious, considerate, and moral. Because we should.

    

It is my job, my calling even, to speak. And I like to talk, so it is a perfect fit. Back in elementary school, I was one of those kids who got in trouble for talking too much. The teacher would sit me in the corner. My first grade teacher even permanently moved my desk into the corner. Sometimes I tell Michael that I am amazed that I'm in one of those jobs where I actually do get paid to talk!

People seek my input and advice and feedback everyday on a wide range of topics, so I'm one of those people James is warning at the beginning of this chapter. Those who are called to speak need to be even more cautious. I worked for a pastor who was very reserved and would sometimes go through an entire church council meeting having said next to nothing. I can admire that temperament, but it isn't mine.

So, my tongue can get me into trouble. And the person I hurt the most with what I say is my own spouse. I am always amazed at how the people we love and are closest to are usually the ones that get our worst sides. Usually unintentionally, but we must confess even sometimes intentionally, we say the wrong thing to those we love. Sometimes it is the base instinct of trying to score a point. Sometimes we've been hurt, disappointed, or angry and strike back. Sometimes we are just tired or grumpy about something completely unrelated and the person closest to us receives the collateral damage.

If you are like me, you really dislike this about yourself. I wish I never said a wrong or hurtful word to Michael. I want to build him up, encourage him, express my respect, admiration, and affection. But I am weak and sinful and not always my best self.

James is right, "no one can tame the tongue—a restless evil, full of deadly poison."

 

But James' concern is also much deeper than our imprudent speech toward one another. Commentator Luke Timothy Johnson writes, "The real peril of the tongue is not found in the passing angry word or the incidental oath or the petty bit of slander. It is found in the creation of distorted worlds of meaning within which the word of truth is suppressed."

James believes that language is indeed very powerful because language creates worlds, or at least worldviews. Our language can participate in creating God's world, or it can "shape reality apart from God," to quote Johnson.

The true test for your speech is does it participate in God's reality or does it participate in those aspects of reality that stand apart from God. It is in this context that our hurtful words about others take on a special significance. Johnson writes,

 

To curse a fellow human being is to break out of the frame of God's creation and God's wisdom. It is to place oneself in the frame of competition and envy and violence and murder, which for James means to betray the purpose of creation.

 

    Our curses, our gossip, our imprudent words end up working contrary to God's will for creation. But we should also be on guard about all of our other language. We usually realize when we've made a mistake and done something hurtful. But do we realize how often the rest of our language does not contribute to God's plan?

 

    The letter of James is wisdom literature. Much like Proverbs in the Hebrew Scriptures, it is a book filled with advice for practical living. And as such, it is concerned with topics that have always concerned ethicists. There were similar statements about guarding the tongue in Hebrew, Greek, and Roman writings of the time. So, James is very much like other writers of ethical advice. But there are some important differences.

    Again, Luke Timothy Johnson points these out. James is not concerned, as many of his contemporaries were, with giving advice of how one should keep one's place within society. He isn't writing a book of etiquette or self-help. He is concerned with what is right and wrong according to God's plan for creation. Second, James is giving advice to the Christian community and how they are to live with one another. So, he isn't concerned with private issues of the home like the nature of marriage, the duties of children, or rules for sexual activity. James also rejects the hierarchies of his social status quo and imagines a more egalitarian society. And finally, James is ultimately not concerned with the individual but the community. His ethics is "communitarian rather than individualistic" as he is against self-assertion and in favour of "solidarity, mercy, and compassion."

    Because of these unique concerns of James, we misread him if we only take James 2 to be about gossip, hurtful words, or imprudent speech. Those things are included and are important things that we must be on guard against if we are to be faithful Christians. But James' concern is deeper – Does all our language shape reality in a Godly or an ungodly direction?

    And, so, today James would be concerned, for instance, with advertising, business, and finance and how that language shapes reality. We have all bought into the worldview of conspicuous consumption. We promote greed and envy. We distort reality in order to seduce people into pursuing things that they do not need and which may be unhealthy for them and the creation. Our language treats people and creation as if they are products available for our consumption.

    And James would be concerned with our politics, and how we have lost civility and villainize one another. We should be able to have conversations about the important issues of the day without getting angry with each other, mean to one other, or hurt by one another. That we have reached such a point reveals that something is wrong in our thinking and in our speaking and in our basic feeling for one another.

    We can also learn from James why it is important for us to transition our language to make it more inclusive. Luke Timothy Johnson makes this point as well.

 

Indeed, more than at any previous time, we have become conscious of the power of speech to shape the world we inhabit and thereby also to shape human experience. . . . With the power to name comes the power to control, and men have shaped by language a world that in many ways has excluded women and their experience. Now women claim their legitimate share in the 'image of God' that is the power to speak.

 

And not only women. Our language can shape reality to either harm or help people of various races, levels of physical ability, sexual orientation, etc. One contemporary phrase that I particularly loathe is "illegal immigrant." Human persons are never illegal. That very phrase assaults the sacred worth of human beings. Migrants might be undocumented, they might be living in this country illegally, but they themselves, in their very personhood are not illegal.

    Barbara Brown Taylor gets to the point in her commentary on this passage:

 

Whether we mean to or not, we construct worlds with speech. Describing the world we see, we mistake it for the whole world. Making meaning of what we see, we conflate this with God's meaning. Then we behave according to the world we have constructed with our speech, even when that causes us to dismiss or harm those who construe the world differently.

 

Ah! Yes, the core problem with our poison tongue is that it reveals our self-centered approach to the world. It is arrogance to assume that how we perceive and understand the world is the only way it can be perceived and understood. It is sinful to dismiss the perceptions and understandings of others simply because they don't fit with ours. This does not mean that there is no objective truth, but our truth is worked out in conversation with diverse worldviews, as we learn about aspects of reality that we miss from our own particular point of view. Humility, curiosity, listening, respectful conversation – these are practices that help to control our poison tongues.

    

    What are we to do, then? Does James offer us any advice, or are we doomed to suffer the ravages of our poison tongues? The advice that James offers is the oldest and truest wisdom. Back in chapter 2, he calls it the royal law: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." He then explains more in the verses that close chapter 3:

 

Who is wise and understanding among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom. But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not be boastful and false to the truth. Such wisdom does not come down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish. For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace.

 

    In practicing your faith and living the virtues of the Christian of life, your speech will construct a Godly world. And a harvest of righteousness and peace will be ours.

Here we go again.  A group has filed a petition drive to overturn the non-discrimation ordinance.

An interesting post at the Cosmos & Culture blog by anthropologist Barbara King.  She goes over the key points in the timeline and asks the fascinating question if being "human" is a matter of anatomy or behaviour/cultural development?  If the latter, then were Neanderthals and Denisovans, who co-existed with us and engaged in complex behaviours also "human" even if they weren't Homo Sapiens?  And new research is revealing that our cultural activities date back to 100,000 years ago, much further back than earlier expected.

An interesting post at the New Media Project applies concepts of Augustine's theology and philosophy to issues of contemporary technology.  

Augustine, as interpreted in Brian Brock’s very helpful Christian Ethics in a Technological Age, explained what he saw as the different approaches to the problem of technology in the “city of God” vs. the “city of the world.” In the former, the task of technology, in Brock’s words, is “the discernment of the proper human place within an ordered love of earthly goods and the flourishing of all creation.” In the earthly city, on the other hand, technology is focused on “how best to gain tactical advantage by its application.” That difference is rooted in Augustine’s understanding of the social nature of sin: It’s not our material nature itself that is sinful or evil (as the Manicheans contended), but rather it’s the misuse of the good gifts of creation for selfish reasons, rather than to serve God and the people around us.

An article about David Brooks' book The Social Animal and what the church might learn from it about desire, creativity, and tradition.

Character informs creativity. A key point of Brooks’ is that true creativity is not innate or the result of rational thinking, but is formed much the way human character is. He looks at the astonishing power of our subconscious mind to develop an intuitive grasp of people, places and situations, in a way that allows us to “feel our way around problems” and sketch the dim outlines of solutions that our conscious mind can then finally sharpen. True creativity, therefore, requires intellectual passion, empathy and imagination that reason can harness, but not supply. Christian leaders ought to inquire whether their church, organization or school is a context where people can exercise those virtures most vital for creativity.